


Dripping Wings & Heavy Things

by Pandorakiin



Series: Supernatural - End of Days [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Anal Play, Angst, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Cas & Dean Get Handsy, Eventual Happy Ending, Explicit Bisexuality, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fluff, Humor, M/M, Omnisexual Castiel, Oral Sex, Other, Playful Sex, Sexuality Crisis, Smut, Supernatural Epilogue, reacharound
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:29:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pandorakiin/pseuds/Pandorakiin
Summary: Excerpt:Each sob was a puppeteer pulling every string of muscle down the front of him tight, involuntarily lifting his knees up off the covers. Dean had no idea how long it took, but the storm’s onslaught did subside. When, finally, he could spare some awareness, he found himself afloat on the sea of an emotion so vast he knew there was no end to it. He was off the edge of the map he used to define himself. Like every explorer throughout history, he discovered the world doesn’t end where the maps say it does. That consolation, however, did nothing to take edge off the ominous olde-tyme mapmaker’s warning:Here, there be monsters..."Down to the Earth I fell, with dripping wings. Heavy things won't fly.""You're here, with me, like this, because love is an enthralling, wonderous, beautiful thing. No matter what skin you find it in." ~ CastielSupernatural Wordplay:Squir·rel /ˈskwər(ə)l/ noun: An adorable, furry, mischievous creature with a definite thing for nuts. <.<Courtesy of Dicktionary.com
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Series: Supernatural - End of Days [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2196285
Comments: 3
Kudos: 5
Collections: DESTIEL FOREVER, Destiel, Destiel Favs, Destiel Ship Stories, Favorite Destiel Fics, destiel





	1. Timeline

**SUPERNATURAL**

DRIPPING WINGS & HEAVY THINGS

Timeline

[Life in Him Yet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872620/chapters/73511004#workskin)

[The Start of Something Good](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872620/chapters/74182347#workskin)

* * *


	2. Life in Him Yet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He can't remember a time that was uncomplicated. Sure as the sunrise he's seen things that you'll never see. Losses and heartache amount to his strength, but, O, how they all take their toll. He's still here fighting - you'd better know there's life in him yet...

Life in Him Yet

Castiel opened his many eyes, blinking, an unnerving feeling taking hold of his heart. Floating in the Empty void, it gnawed at him constantly. A torturous, painful itch, like maggots slowly eating away dead flesh, was one of precious few things tethering him to awareness of his own existence. He felt it every time another miniscule piece of him disappeared. Maddening eons that would seem like eternity would pass before the Emptiness’ multitude of mindlessly feeding mouths finally consumed a being of his magnitude. The terrified screams of the lost echoed in the blackness as the nothing consuming them drove each one insane in turn, some more quickly than others.

Every once in a great while, a white-hot pain pierced the seraph’s heart. The Emptiness had wanted his taking to be unwilling. It, in It’s infinite cruelty, had wanted to savour the taking of his soul. To relish and revel in his futile resistance. To bask in hearing his pleading to be returned to the one he loved above all others, all else. Castiel denied it the pleasure. He’d kept his peace, determined not to add his own preternatural wailing to the miserious cacophony of those imprisoned and suffering alongside him. Discontent with his serene acceptance of his fate, It seeded among the horrendous, scattered screams, a voice. One that pierced his heart like no other. Saying things he knew Dean himself would never have said...

 _You disgust me_...

_You’ll never be found..._

_You deserve oblivion..._

_You were never family_...

_I will never love you as you love me..._

_You’re nothing to me..._

_Never return..._

On... and on... and on it went. Moments passed like centuries. Time lost meaning and became one with the nothingness, leaving Castiel only thought and feeling with which to define himself in this empty place. When all else ceases to exist, one clings to pain as desperately as any other sensation, more so, even. As one of the most potent feelings, little else serves as so firm an anchor from which to perceive existence...

The black void had long ago become a frightening, swirling mass of oily, patchwork colours – products of his mind trying to paint the nothingness with _something_ as it does when one closes their eyes in darkness. As the edges of his mind began fraying, the images, more often frightening than friendly, would manifest themselves then flow away like shapes perceived in the clouds by the mind’s eye. Mirages designed to kill the spirit of those lost within the Emptiness with a thirst for those left behind.

In one awful moment, as if the Emptiness had learned of what he was seeing, the face in his mind’s eye became clearer, gained proper colour, form and before long, stepped through the parting darkness, alight with a glory potent enough to obscure even an angel’s sight.

If Castiel had possessed a beating heart it would have stopped the moment the boy spoke. “Peace, Castiel. Do not be afraid. I am _more_ now, than I have ever been before. I am everywhere, always. Thousands of years have gone by since you sacrificed yourself to this place.” He couldn’t see Jack’s smile, but he could _feel_ it.

Castiel uttered the first sound in all the thousands of years that had passed. A choked, hopeful, yet saddened and broken question. "Dean...?"

“...Is waiting for you.” Jack’s laughter was subdued but everywhere, washing over his father’s tortured soul like waves gently lapping upon a sandy beach. 

The heart-wrenching pain that wracked Castiel’s being in that moment was very nearly more than he could bear. Now that It had broken into him, discovered the hope he had never allowed himself to surrender, the worst tortures would begin. Castiel was determined he would face it in the manner and form of his choosing – as the human being who had been the lens through which he experienced and loved humanity. He laughed bitterly as a smile formed on familiar lips. It was his one act of defiance: resisting the Emptiness in a form so diminutive, whatever pride it possessed would be offended. The insult would only provoke worse tortures to come, but, at the end of all things, there was nothing – not an angel or anything other that he would rather be. If It would deceive his senses, create for him a ruse that would have him face – touch – Dean again, it was this body he would use for the purpose. No other. A body that could express – that could mourn and cry – that could breathe, speak, feel and smell... that could love in the most visceral ways Cas had ever known.

Tears began to make their winding ways down his face, whichever way was down being in a constant state of flux. Castiel held himself unmoving, but quivering, afraid, still afloat in the void.

A glowing hand reached out, wrapping itself around his. Castiel recognized the feeling. It was divine – _real_ – _not_ an illusion. He began taking in heaving breaths as he spoke, his expression awestruck. “I don’t understand... _how?”_

Jack’s laughter was unrestrained now as he drew nearer to the beloved man he esteemed as a father, reaching out to put an arm around him. “I learned from the best.”

“You spent thousands of years _annoying_ It into setting me free...” Castiel’s laughter was mixed with sobs, sadness and a smile engaged in a tug-of-war at both corners of his lips, each winning every now and then.

“Exactly,” Jack replied. The warmth of his son’s voice and embrace brought heat and feeling back to Castiel’s frigid form. He began to shake, not out of fear, but as one does when they have gone without sight or sensation for far too long and their every sense is overloaded.

“Dean, Sam... everyone. They’re long dead... gone... in their hearts, they have, most likely, left me behind. Even if they are in Heaven, I can never go back...” Cas said languidly, remaining limp, his gaze vacant. All the while, his son collected him up into his arms, subtly and knowingly shaking his head.

“It may have taken thousands of years to secure your release, but time is relative and I am it’s Master, now.” With shaking arms and allowing himself a few moments of relieved laughter, Castiel embraced the boy who became God, contentedly resting his chin on his shoulder, smiling, and in that moment, finding the peace he’d been bidden to. “Hold me tight," Jack instructed. "The Emptiness agreed to let you leave, not facilitate it. Our escape will be... energetic.” Jack smiled impishly as he and the angel in his arms disappeared into a fissure of light that existed for no more than the barest instant, a thunderous crack resonating throughout the Emptiness in its wake...

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to my alternate, extended ending to the Supernatural saga. 
> 
> As with all my other fan works, I'll do my very best to combine the best of both worlds: things in the canon that worked and represented a fitting end, while making not-so-subtle additions with respect to a certain hunter and his profound bond with an angel who just so happens to inhabit a male vessel. ;)
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story my hard-shippin' heart is tellin' and I hope to see you again!
> 
> Cheers!


	3. The Start of Something Good

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I know that it's gonna take some time. I've got to admit that the thought has crossed my mind: this might end up like it should.

Dean lay asleep against the high arm of the couch, a beer nestled into the crook of his arm, the rims of his eyelids an irritated red and swollen thanks to salt in tears cried unconsciously while he slept.

At first, he kept moving through the days – one foot in front of the other – until, one day, he couldn’t take another step without the weight of what was missing from his life crushing him down to the floor in a bunker hallway. He leaned on the wall and slid down, legs crumpling under him, one arm curled over his roiling stomach, the other narrowly preventing him from faceplanting on the floor. The devastation crashed over him in waves, each one eliciting a sob and tears enough to completely blur his vision, twisting his expression into sadness at the crest of each wave while he only scarcely managed to straighten it in the troughs between. Sam had been out with Eileen. For that he was grateful. He managed to get to his feet, to his room and his bed where he lay, one hand clasped over his mouth. Each sob was a puppeteer pulling every string of muscle down the front of him tight, involuntarily lifting his knees up off the covers.

He had no idea how long it took, but the storm’s onslaught _did_ subside. When, finally, he could spare some awareness, he found himself drained yet adrift on the sea of an emotion so vast he knew there was no end to it. He was off the edge of the map he used to define himself. Like every explorer throughout history, he discovered the world doesn’t end where the maps say it does. That consolation, however, did nothing to take edge off the ominous olde-tyme mapmaker’s warning:

_Here, there be monsters._

A metallic crash in the silence pulled Dean out of sleep and into waking in an instant. Eyes wide open and tense, he carefully set his beer down beside the couch, making his way into the library where Sam was seated at the massive mahogany table, surrounded by stacks of old books and manuscripts. God may have been forced to give over his mantle but while an otherworldly ecosystem of wild, restless spirits and supernatural creatures still existed alongside the mundane, a hunter’s work would never be done.

“Hey. Did you hear—?” Dean began.

“Relax, Dean. This place ‘goes bump in the night’ every now and then,” Sam replied patiently, looking up from what he was doing with a partial smile on. It lessened when he took in the sight of his brother’s face. A pang in his heart wouldn’t let him send Dean back to sleep right then. “I could use a beer. You?”

Dean half-smiled as he let out a chuckle and nodded. The one he’d been holding had gone warm anyhow. He turned toward the galley, freezing in place when another chorus of metallic clatters sounded from the direction of the infirmary. Glaring back over his shoulder at his brother, Dean’s expression went cold, muscle wrapped over his jaw visibly winding itself tight under the skin. Sam took in a steadying breath as he slowly stood, wordlessly falling in behind Dean as he headed to the galley for the concealed weapons they kept there. Sam’s handgun was loaded with silver bullets, Dean’s with ammunition able to kill anything divine.

Keeping one shoulder to the near wall, Dean stepped out into the hall bringing his weapon up as Sam hugged the far wall. A thundercrack sounded from inside the infirmary that left the brothers disoriented and cringing, deafened. The lights in the hallway went out, slowly flickering back on as the emergency generator kicked in. Sam had seen the instant the heavy metal door heaved outward and it set his heart racing. The two were strung high and shivering as they closed in on the door. Sam stepped to the far side of the door with quick, practiced ease, resting one hand on the door handle. He looked to his brother and waited for his nod before wrenching the door open wide.

Stepping into the room visually sweeping the space, Dean shouted, “ _Show yours_ —!” The last of the word was strangled out as his throat seized. Gurneys lay overturned, drawers and cabinet doors were all ajar and smashed, everything on the counters and standalone cabinets having been thrown about, now strewn haphazardly on the floor. The smell of ozone was potent enough to sting his nostrils. Shattered glass and shards of burst light bulbs littered the floor, crunching under his boot. In the centre of the carnage lay a limp, naked human being, foetally curled up on his side, back toward the brothers. Dean lowered the gun in hand, tucking it into the back of his jean’s waistband, sure of who lay on the frigid tile floor the moment light from the hall revealed the shape of him again. Taking in stilted breaths, he swept aside as much glass as he could with his foot before kneeling and clearing away more with his hands. Taking hold of Castiel by the shoulder he rolled him back into his arm, lifting his torso up off the floor, wrapping both his shaking arms around him.

Dean swallowed to loosen up his closed throat. “Cas...?” Shaking the angel in his arms gently, Dean queried him again. _“Cas?”_

He could feel Castiel’s laughter move his chest before he could hear it and he moved one hand to rest the vee formed by his forefinger and thumb under the crux of Cas’ collarbones. “That’s still my name,” Castiel growled, sarcastic affection obvious in his tone, a groggy smile on his lips. Dean took in and let out a shaky breath. _His lips..._

“Cas...” Dean breathed. A swell in his newfound expanse of ocean washed over him from behind, folding him over forward. Before Dean could think a single thing other, his lips were pressed to Cas’ and he was breathing in the scent of him and the intoxicating cologne of ozone like a man starved of air.

Sam stood in the doorway, overjoyed yet speechless, tacitly turning his gaze away when the kiss started. He took in a slow, deep, relieved breath as a smile formed on his face, water coming to his eyes. After everything his brother had suffered and survived, he knew _no one_ more deserving of the happiness inherent to true and profound love. When the kiss didn’t stop, Sam silently released the hammer of his gun, made it safe and retreated to the galley, returning the firearm to its hiding place. There would be an opportunity for him welcome his brother back all in good time.

“Dea...mmn?” Castiel tried to whisper as yet another kiss stifled him, when he began to taste salty tears. A joyous laugh forced Dean to break away, resting his forehead against Cas’, eyes closed and breathing hard. He tried to recall the last time his body had gone into overdrive just holding and kissing someone... _never_.

“Is something wrong?” Cas asked, innocently, still somewhat breathless. “Your heart...” Dean laughed again, taking in an uneasy breath. It was jackhammering away in his chest, and was on its way to drowning out hearing anything else. Leaving the hand resting on the nape of Dean’s neck exactly where it was, Cas brought up his other hand, resting it over the hand Dean kept pressed against his chest. Something in him instinctively recognized that Dean wasn’t shaking out of fear or sadness. A drive much more carnal than that was in play.

“Gave the ol’ ticker a jumpstart, there,” Dean said, still light on breath.

“Your definition of ‘personal space’ has changed considerably,” Cas observed, teasing. “How long was I gone?”

“ _Way_ too damned long,” Dean managed to say between a laugh and a sniffle, his tone taking a decidedly stern turn. “ _Never_ do that to me again. You hear?”

Cas’ expression turned heartbroken. “I’m sorry, Dean. There was no other choice. I thought...”

“I know damned well what you thought, and you were right. That never made the pill easier to swallow.”

Pained, Cas sighed and let his eyelids fall closed as he placed a kiss on Dean’s cheek, fitting the curvatures of their faces together and resting that way. “I am _sorry_.” The two remained entwined until Dean’s shaking subsided enough for him to realize Castiel was trembling as well.

“Cas...”

“I find myself wanting for a pair of pants,” Cas said, wearing an affectionate smile.

Dean smiled and laughed, collecting himself. Nothing too sexy was going to go down on a floor littered with glass shrapnel. “For now, a sheet’ll have to do.” Dean carefully let Cas out of his grasp, waiting until the seraph seemed to be holding himself up out of the glass on the floor before he stepped over to an overturned cabinet, lying face-up. Wrenching open one stainless steel door with some difficulty, he found clean linen for the beds inside. Unfolding the sheet to half width he looked up, the sight of Castiel standing naked as the day Jimmy was born sending a surprising pang straight through his heart. He could feel the flush on his cheeks and he averted his eyes for a moment before getting a grip and forcing himself to meet Cas’ gaze as he stepped closer and handed him the sheet. The sensation that arced between them when Cas’ hand touched his in the taking of the bedsheet gave Dean a start and went straight to the belly, sending a flock of butterflies into flight.

Cas wove involuntarily as he tried to secure the bedsheet around his waist, letting out a pained hiss as his step strayed onto broken glass. Dean closed in instantly to hold him steady. Leaning heavily into him, Castiel gingerly lifted his foot off the floor, fumbling at holding the sheet in place when it wouldn’t stay put on its own. Dean closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. When he opened them he was staring heavenward, uncertain and at an agonizing loss. He could already feel himself going cold, putting distance between himself and the angel in his arms. In an eerily tangible way, he saw himself standing at a junction of crossroads. The road to the Rubicon to the right and a thousand miles of Nowhere to the left.

 _God himself had literally placed the gift of something transcendent in his hands._ All that was needed of him was the courage to let it be. Warmth flooded through him on heels of the thought. The moment it did, Cas wrapped his free arm around him. Dean smiled, realizing he hadn’t been standing at that crossroads in his mind alone.

“You don’t mind?” Cas asked, his tone regretful as he straightened up to look Dean in the eye from what would have, once upon a time, been _much_ too close.

Dean shook his head almost imperceptibly. “No.” Cas, having been an audience to more than the momentary indecision, knew what was coming next. He limped, turning his bad leg toward Dean, putting an arm over his shoulder and around the back of his neck. A short hop with his good leg and he was up in arms resting his forehead against the side of Dean’s neck. Taking his first steps carefully, Dean backed toward the infirmary door, glass chips under his bootheels snapping deeper and sharper under the weight of two men rather than one.

Out in the hall, safely outside the debris field, Dean let Cas set foot down on the floor, conscious of keeping the splinter-ridden one from making contact. Keeping Cas’ one arm slung around his neck, Dean had his other arm wrapped tightly around the angel’s ribcage to leverage him up just enough every time they took another hop-step toward Dean’s room. They made the trip without uttering a word. Just how weakened Cas seemed set Dean’s every nerve on edge.

Letting Cas down onto the near side of the bed with care, Dean found himself disliking the physical distance between them. Cas took in a sharp breath, shifting to hold his entire right side off the bed. He let the sheet fall away from his hip and leg, keeping the remainder of his modesty. There was blood on the sheet from the hip all the way down the side of his leg and when Dean looked back, drops of blood marked a trail behind them. Not only were there shards of glass lodged in his side from his shoulder to his feet on that side there were also angry-looking welts all over Cas’ body that were much more obvious under better light.

“Cas... what is all this?” Dean asked, reaching out, unthinking, to assess the wounds.

Cas took in an uncomfortable breath at the contact. “It’s... complicated. For now, let’s just say ‘the Emptiness’ and leave it at that.”

Dean withdrew his hand, blinking and retaking the focus touching Cas had hijacked. “You’re not healing...” he observed as he helped Castiel maneuver himself into a position where he didn’t have to lie on his injured side.

“No. I can’t.”

Nodding, Dean accepted the fact without question. There was an unmistakable tenderness to it when he spoke. “We gotta get this shit outta you. I’ll be _right back_.”

Letting his head fall to rest on the pillow once Dean was out of sight, Castiel felt the tension he carried in his upper back, shoulder and neck dissipate though he still found himself shivering. His eyelids fell closed and he took a steady, deep breath in, the air inhaled telling him more than Dean could possibly bring himself to speak to. Tears, anguish, sweat, joy and relief, releases, shame and confusion, longing, guilt and regret. Of course, there was the cocktail of cologne, pheromones and everything else that differentiated one human body from another. Something he had never thought to note before. He did so now. The sound of Dean’s hurried footfalls in the hallway brought Cas’ attention back to the moment away from the otherworldly collage in his mind’s eye made up of the reasons behind what his sense of smell was showing him.

Dean walked back into the room, a first aid kit, forty of vodka and shot glass in hand. He closed the door behind him, the scuffing sound of the door latching into the frame carrying with it the prescient impression of a pressure-release hiss preceding a freight train’s departure from station.

Cas had to speak through his chuckling. “It’s going to take _a lot_ more than that to anesthetize me.”

“Yeah... not much I can do about that. Just lookin’ to steady up my hands, and I’m guessing you’re thirsty,” Dean replied. Cas’ smile and appreciative laughter told him he’d guessed right.

“That’s putting it mildly,” Cas replied, his voice rolling out over gravel much courser than usual.

Pouring the shot for Cas and handing it over with a subdued smile on, Dean took a long swallow from the bottle himself as he pulled his desk chair over to the bedside. The bleeding from Cas’ foot was the worst by far. Dean capped the vodka and set himself up to begin work there.

Gauze pads, a scalpel, needle-nose tweezers, pen light, peroxide, alcohol, saline flush syringe, ointment...

The biggest pieces were the worst. More than once Dean had to go looking through a considerable amount of blood for a small shard that stayed behind after the larger chunk was removed from the pad of Cas’ foot. Except for the longer, deeper ones he let the wounds bleed when he was done and moved on. At one particularly jagged piece of glass and a sharp, pained inhale from Cas, Dean’s hand moved with a mind of its own to rest over Cas’ shin bone – a comforting, calming touch. The longer he left it there, the warmer his palm got. He left it in place long past the point it was possible to deny the nature of his want for the contact.

“Dean...”

“This is going to take a while,” was Dean’s curt but unmistakably caring reply. Castiel settled back, letting himself melt into the mattress, giving himself permission to enjoy the sensation of Dean’s examining touch. Having run his fingertips across something he thought was glass but unable to see it very well, Dean picked up the pen light from the cheap, faux wood-finished tee-vee tray and clicked it on, looking for a glint off the tiny splinter of glass, sliding the blade of the scalpel across Cas’ skin, steadily, surgically probing for the slightest catch to locate it. Having found what he was looking for, Dean opened the skin up around the puncture wound ever-so-slightly. Enough to get fine-point tweezers around the foreign debris. Depositing the glass on gauze along with a speck of blood, he dipped the tweezers into a dixie cup of alcohol moving on to the next obvious extraction site – a piece that wound up lodged in Cas’ skin at the hip joint.

From how far through tissue it went, Dean figured it a reasonable assumption Castiel had outright landed on it. It was going to bleed a fair bit. Reaching for extra absorbent pads, gauze and the syringe to flush it, he prepared pulled the piece and cover it with something immediately. The glass chip hit the stainless-steel collection tray, one of the largest so far. His spread fingers anchored his hand on Cas’ hip, his thumb lightly pulling back on the skin to keep it open while the saline worked its way in. Dean let the water and blood run, his thumb lightly weighing down an absorbent pad. Soon, the muscle under Dean’s hand contracted in a few jittery spurts.

“Feel anything in there, still?” Dean asked, looking up to meet Cas’ unwavering gaze.

“No.”

Blood rushed to his ears and cheeks when he realized the shape of the sheet over Cas’ hip was changing. Turning back to his own hand he was pretty sure of where the nerve he was hitting was. “Oh.” Dean was about to pull his hand away when Cas, quickly reached up resting his hand over Dean’s. Lightly at first, then completely when it became clear Dean no longer looked like he was itching to take flight. Cas curled his fingertips around to the underside of Dean’s hand. The two stayed that way until the bleeding eased enough to take pressure off the wound. 

Dean blinked hard a few times and took in a deep breath, leaning back in his chair, bringing the soiled bandaging with him and tossing it into the surgical tray. Running his hands over his closed eyes, he reached to the bottle of vodka, pouring a shot for Cas, taking another swig himself. Cas set the glass down on the bedside table when Dean stood, taking a few paces around the room to stretch the tension out of his upper back, shoulders and neck.

“I’ll leave most of the cuts undressed. Clean the blood up after it dries. They’re better off being open to the air to heal.”

“Are any stitches needed?”

“No. Stitching will only do more damage. Good, sticky bandages and staying off your foot will do the trick. I guarantee you there are crutches here somewhere,” Dean said, walking back to the bedside, picking up the bottle of vodka en route. He cocked it to one side in Cas’ direction to wordlessly ask the question. Castiel glanced at the bottle and laughed.

“You think I’d say no?” Dean smiled, shaking his head. _No_. _No, he didn’t_. He poured the shot, waiting to take the glass back...

Dean put the last bandage in place on Cas’ shoulder, taking in a _deep_ breath and smiling, as appreciative of his own handiwork as the angel he’d patched up.

“I’ve done all I can for now, I think,” Dean said, relaxing back into his chair. He was up and rifling through a foot locker the moment the thought occurred to him. He came away with a cotton thermal blanket in hand. “Better get you off that bloody sheet and tucked in.” He blinked, groggy. The liquor was finally going to his head. “Lift your legs up a bit.” Cas did as he was asked, and Dean rolled up the bloody hospital sheet careful to keep any glass debris off his own bed. He handed Cas the blanket to safeguard the angel’s modesty and his fraying nerves. Cas lifted his hip to free the rest of the sheet. Brushing a few flecks of glass off his skin, Dean pulled the sheet and made for the door to put it in the laundry.

His hand resting on the door knob, he had the distinct impression that if he walked out the door, he wouldn’t walk back in.

The bedsheet hit the floor beside his feet, his palm rested on the edge of the door, keeping it closed. Each breath that ticked by, Dean became more and more keenly aware that there was someone with him now without whom every breath taken before he returned and since he died had been empty.

Boots, socks, shirt... and jeans. Each in turn joined the bloody bedsheet on the floor by the door. Dean turned to face Castiel, unable to bring himself to look up – at first.

“Dean, don’t do this if-”

“If I don’t want it? That’s just it, Cas. I do want... this. But I feel like someone’s pounding out the back of my head with a metal mallet... like it’s a fuckin’ dented steel drum. And no, it’s not the vodka,” Dean said bringing his gaze up to meet Castiel’s. A momentary frown contracted the angel’s facial features before returning to the serene expression and keen glare that gave the distinct impression he was sensing – seeing – _more_. Cas sat up with a touch of difficulty, resting his arm on his bent knee, offering an upturned hand. Dean couldn’t help the hint of a smile that turned up one corner of his lips. A twist of sad relief moved Dean’s features, his eyelids beginning to fall closed.

Summoning the will to open them, Dean asked the pointed question: “Is this you?”

Castiel let out a sigh, slightly shaking his head. “No. You’re exhausted, Dean.”

He immediately regretted the suspicion, nodding. He was. Dean walked up to the foot of the bed resting his hand in Cas’. Meeting Castiel’s gaze with his, at once seductive and stoic, Dean moved to the open side of the bed. The two centred themselves on the mattress as Dean laid on his side, taking Cas’ hand and coming to rest with his other hand over the angel’s shoulder. Sleep did not come quickly. Eventually, though, Dean was laying slack against the seraph’s side, one of his legs unconsciously venturing to rest over Cas’. Smiling and letting his eyes fall closed, Castiel focused his attention on the rhythm of the heartbeat next to him, gladly abandoning himself to a place where the only thing that anchored him was the sound.

❖

Dean took in a heaving breath and shot up in bed, wide awake, skin slick and shining with sweat. He was still shuddering and twitching, the spark of each spasm eliciting a guttural, pleasured noise that started out in the centre of his chest and sounded aloud through clenched teeth. There was a hard, heavy weight over his right leg and something running across his skin between it and the cloth of his briefs. His heart was beating as if it was trying to break through the ribs caging it. Taking in breath whenever he could get it, Dean swung his legs off the bed and sat, head bowed and wide-eyed, one hand to where his heart was pounding against his ribs.

“It was a good dream, then?”

Smiling and laughing at the reference but still uneasy, Dean asked, “Could you... see...?”

Cas answered his every fear with patient, hopeful affection. “No. I’d... rather not spoil anything for myself.”

Dean shook his head. Dreaming about it was one thing, doing was a hurdle of another order of magnitude entirely. “Cas... I’m _way_ off the reservation, here.” Sadness coloured his tone of voice in a dangerous way. He just... didn’t... _know_. Silence stretched on between them until tentative fingertips made contact with the skin of his back at his tailbone, turned over and Cas ran his fingernails over his skin until his hand came to rest comfortably on Dean’s hip. That simple touch had Dean sitting up straight, arcing back, working one shoulder and staying that way until the shaking moving him from head to toe faded. Not long after, the tension in his back released him so that he could sit forward. The two sat in silence but his breathing stayed uneven and deep.

“May I?”

A tense few moments of consideration passed. “Yeah.”

Ditching any form of cover, Castiel crossed the bed, his expression nothing less than predatory, fitting himself against Dean, knees sliding out to the sides, coming to rest flush against him from stem to sternum, his bone-stiff organ coming to rest in the spinal depression of the small of Dean’s back. It happened so quickly and fluidly that Dean had only enough time to stiffen in shock from head to toe. His hands were raised and stayed in the air. The touch of fingertips appeared at the edge of his hairline at the back of his neck, evenly making their way up to the crown of his head and taking hold of him by the hair at the crown of his head. It was a hand firmly pressing on his breastbone that pulled him back to rest on Cas’ chest, a gentle tug on his hair only coming in to play once Cas deemed it was time for Dean to lay his head back on his shoulder.

Rigid but poseable, Dean let himself be moved, recognizing, in the moment the back of his head rested on Cas’ shoulder, that what he was feeling wasn’t revulsion. It was potent fear.

Castiel’s voice took on an unsettling, hypnotic tone, falling to a register even deeper than usual. “I know I haven’t hurt you, Dean. And I never will unless you ask me to. Believe that.”

Dean blinked a few times. Having been told to believe it, he simply _did_. He barely managed his reproach. “I thought you were staying outta my head.”

Sighing, Cas hoped the adage ‘forgiveness rather than permission’ proved true. “I hope you can forgive me, Dean. I thought it prudent to keep an ear to ground. All that just went through your head and you couldn’t bring yourself to do anything other than breathe.” The hand Cas had placed on Dean’s chest relaxed heading slowly and steadily toward the south pole, settling onto the ridge held up and to the side by his briefs. “As you can’t read my mind, I feel I should caution you before you decide to shut me out: everything I’ve seen you feel so far is little more than the flame of a candle next to the forest fire I’m keeping in check. I don’t want to hurt you, but you don’t say enough to make sure that won’t happen.”

“I thought angels don’t feel...” Cas’ grip on his hair tightened but not nearly enough to inflict pain.

The statement caused Castiel to look back on his infinite lifetime through a lens that suddenly seemed clearer. He explained himself, his tone falling into lustful menace by the end. “It would be more accurate to think of angels as being trained – programmed – to distance themselves from a dangerously deep reservoir of emotions - harnessed by a yoke of rigorous mental discipline that’s never been broken before. I’ll warn you only once, Dean Winchester: it has now. Ask what you will of me accordingly.” Dean managed a slight, shivering nod. Not that he wasn’t, apparently, _up_ for this, but things were getting freaky.

Castiel smiled, chuckling, appreciative of how torqued tight the body in his hands was, though also aware that Dean wasn’t perfectly comfortable. “Relax, Dean.” Again, having heard the words, he just _did_. His arms dropped, legs slacked, torso fell back and his head fell to rest comfortably on the plane of Cas’ shoulder. His falling arm had moved the hand Cas had laid on his groin, and even this slight movement was enough to cause him to twitch. Thankfully, the suggestion hadn’t affected _everything_.

Having less breath to work with than usual, Dean asked, “Where _the hell_ did you pick this stuff up?”

“Seems I’m a quick study.” In the back of his mind, Castiel still harboured a touch of doubt this was real. Cas used his grip on Dean’s hair to suggest turning to face him. Once he was, Cas released him only to put his hand over Dean’s eyes. Being sightless ratcheted Dean’s nerves up yet another notch.

Suddenly, Cas’ lips were close enough to feel them brush against his, feel his breath, when he spoke. “If only once...” _If you were given the chance to kiss the person you love more than your own existence only once, how would you do it?_ Castiel’s kiss answered the question **_in spades_** as his hand slid back into Dean’s hair, his fingertips pressed into his scalp, hips bucking into his back, fingertips of the seraph’s other hand venturing underneath the waistband of his briefs...

An undefinable amount of time passed before Dean found his way back to his senses enough to take in the air required to form a whisper of a three-letter name in the space between kisses. “Cas.” The confusion in it was the only thing that slowed then stopped Castiel. He realized Dean was shaking his head, not just shaking. “Can’t think,” was the next thing Dean said. The only thing he did coherently know was that his heart was jumping like it was being electrocuted and needed to slow down. Cas chuckled and smiled, resting his cheek against Dean’s, satisfied that he’d gotten his point across, realizing Dean had been in a state where he couldn’t form a coherent thought or emotion to protest, even if he wanted to.

Castiel decided reigning things in was for the best. He helped Dean right himself, having to take a firm hold of his shoulder again when it became apparent Dean wasn’t going to stop falling over forward. It seemed the suggestion that he relax hadn’t worn off quite yet. Cas, amused, placing a reverent butterfly kiss on Dean’s shoulder, waited patiently until he stayed upright of his own volition.

“Don’t know what you’re selling, bub, but whatever it is, it’s primo shit,” Dean quipped, having re-collected enough of his wits to pull it off. Cas laughed and smiled, smoothly backing away. Bringing the cotton thermal blanket back up, he laid down, folding the bed’s single pillow underneath his head and neck to prop himself up somewhat. Dean slid himself backward to sit cross-legged, back-to-side with the angel in his bed. When he finally turned to look at Castiel, there was a quizzical look on his face.

“What?” Dean asked.

"Is there something wrong with me? I don’t recall being this... uncomfortable after the last time I was intimate,” Cas queried, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“I feel... bruised, down south...”

Dean couldn’t help laughing and smiling. “No. There’s nothing wrong with _you_. Congratulations. Your first case of blue balls. Happens when you don’t get off.”

“I see. A rather... _inconvenient_ design flaw,” Cas groused.

Finding himself chuckling again, Dean sighed. “Oh yeah, the feeling sucks. Not the finest example of intelligent design.” Having already popped his cork dreaming, it was safe to bet he was in nowhere near as dire straits as Cas. He looked to where his forearm was resting on top of his knee, turning the palm of his hand up, his gaze locked on it. It occurred to him Cas had possibly never had reason to give himself a hand. Dean wasn’t keen on the idea of... taking care of the problem, but he was even less keen on lying beside the seraph who’d just made him feel the way he did and telling him to take care of it himself. Problem was, the idea of doing so had his body winding itself up to uncomfortably rigid again.

Then, Cas’ hand crept in from the periphery of his vision, fingers trailing up the sensitive skin on the upturned underside of his arm. The tingling feeling his fingernails created running over the palm of Dean’s hand before his fingers settled into place between each of his, sparked a heat in it. Time passed where Dean couldn’t bring himself to move, his reservations getting the best of him. Then, he did, closing his relaxed fingers around Cas’ hand hard enough to turn his fingers a patchwork white and red. There was water coming into his eyes and painful warmth in the centre of his chest.

“Dean, what are you thinking?”

Looking up to Cas, surprised he wasn’t ‘tuning in’, Dean replied mischievously, “I think a little _southern courtesy_ is in order. Lay back. Close your eyes. Don’t look.” Having been somewhat on his side, Castiel laid himself out on his back, flat and comfortable, never taking his eyes off Dean. A slight nod from Dean reminded him to close his eyes. A closed smile formed on Cas’ lips as he did, letting his head fall to the side facing Dean.

Feeling safely unobserved, Dean quickly leaned over to a drawer in his bedside table and a small bottle came back to Cas’ side with him. He folded one leg in as close as he could manage, the other straight out to his side. He warmed up a squeeze of lubrication, rubbing his palms together. Working a knot out of his shoulder he rested his right elbow on his knee, resting the palm of his free hand on the space between Cas navel and boner. Cas’ stomach and hard on jumped at the touch. Dean cocked an eyebrow up, looking north, appreciating the look on the angel’s face. _All right_.

Resting his hand at the top of Cas’ thigh, he pulled it back making contact with the skin of his sack causing it to contract, evoking pleasured twitches as he ran his slick fingers firmly up the spine and down again to find its base. Taking hold of Cas’ balls a giving them a gentle but firm squeeze and pull upward extracted a guttural keen and torso twist from the angel at his mercy. Cas struggled to keep his eyes closed, his breath turning short and shallow for a few moments. The scorching heat in the palm of Dean’s hand had his nerves dancing. Of its own accord, Castiel’s hand wandered across the sheets finding a welcome home on Dean’s folded leg.

Dean took hold of Cas in both hands, using the lubrication on them to ensure he was covered from tip to base. Leaving his hand resting around Cas’ roots, his thumb and forefinger keeping his mast from moving too freely, he gave it a few slow, firm, rotating strokes, gauging where the strongest twitches in the rest of his body happened. A few quick short strokes around the seeping head... he explored the space underneath Cas’ corona with thumb and fingertips. Cas twisted from head to toe, legs moving, chest contracting, pushing his hip closer to Dean and bring his far hand to his forehead and running the hand back into his hair.

Satisfied he knew enough to sprint for the finish line, Dean picked up his pace. He managed a hit to the money spots he’d mapped out every stroke, turning Cas into an alternately bucking, writhing, moaning, grasping mess, the drops of leakage on the flat of his stomach growing in number every few passes. Spasms of release began and Dean slowed but kept his hand at work, until what had to be the majority of the cum Cas had to give was on his stomach. He moved himself back and leaned down, his lips closing over the string of skin in the upturned cleft of the head, running his tongue up into the vee, twanging that guitar string with the tip of his tongue until a surprising, ecstatic cry escaped from Castiel’s lips. Right on its heels came, “Dean!” The angel’s grip on his leg tightened, fingertips pressing into the skin and muscle.

Keeping his fingertips pressed to and moving around Cas’ head, Dean rose, looking for a kiss, his lips bringing with them a salty, metallic but far from unpleasant taste. “Cas...” he said sliding his forearm under the seraph’s neck. Cas’ eyes shot open at another spasm of pleasure, knowing intuitively Dean had lifted the restriction, watching as Dean kissed him. He wrapped an arm over Dean’s neck, his own kisses enthusiastic replies in turn. Dean slowed himself, pulling away, Cas’ lower lip coming with him for a split second. His gaze met Cas’ for a few wordless moments, taking in the euphoric expression he wore, smiling. Dean stretched an arm over Cas, pulling a pair of boxers out of the bedside table, using them to wipe his hands and pick up as much semen as the fabric would catch, tossing it back onto the bedside table. Coming to rest on his elbow, Dean let his forehead hang and rest between Castiel’s shoulder and chest.

He was so strung out, he almost _wanted_ Cas to pull his hypnotic suggestion thing again and just _tell_ him to go to sleep.

“Make yourself comfortable, Dean. If you can sleep, sleep. If you can’t, don’t,” Cas said patiently. Dean chuckled, smiling. He sat up to retrieve the cotton blanket and pulled it over both of them, settling into the cradle of Cas’ arm. Free of any external influence, Dean was swiftly dead asleep.

❖

Cas walked into the library on one crutch one foot up off the floor, smartly dressed once again, minus the trench coat and suit jacket, his collar unbuttoned and tie relaxed. The angel half-smiled when Sam looked up to see him. It struck Sam how much gaunter he looked than he used to be. He didn’t fill his clothes out the way he used to. Whatever he’d been through over the past few months, it must’ve been something _bad_ enough to begin affecting his vessel like this. 

“Hello, Sam.”

Getting up and coming over to him straight away, without so much as a moment’s hesitation, Sam wrapped his arms around his much older brother.

Water in his eyes, Sam spoke. “It’s good to see you, Cas... You... stickin’ around this time?” he asked, having difficulty getting his words to come out steady.

“Yes, I think so,” Castiel replied, a contented smile on, putting his free arm around Sam.

“Good,” Sam said, taking in a sniffle, clearing his throat and giving Castiel a firm pat on the back.

Laughing, Castiel quipped, “I missed you, too.”

Sam started full-on laughing, letting go of Castiel and lifting one hand to give him a solid clap on the shoulder. When the angel twitched away, he stopped his hand just inches shy of contact.

“Whoa. Sorry,” Sam said, frowning. It was unlike the angel to carry injuries at all.

“I’m, ah, going to be healing for a little while. I’ll spare you the gory details but, I’m not exactly in top form,” Cas said, the memory casting a shadow over him. A quick, burdened smile darted across Sam’s lips, and he nodded.

“Yeah, there’s a fair share of that goin’ around. Still, you’re here. That’s what matters,” Sam said, tears coming to his eyes, resting his outstretched hand on top of the seraph’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t want to. There was no other way...”

Sam shook his head. “You’ve got nothin’ to apologize for. Don’t take this the wrong way, Cas, but I lost both of you that day. I’m really glad you’re here.” Clearing his throat and chasing the water out of his eyes, Sam collected himself, managing a quick smile. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, Sam. For everything.”

Turning back and meeting Cas’ gaze with a subdued smile on, Sam gave him a quick nod and returned to his research, unrolling a scroll that required some careful handling. A good ten minutes later Dean came wandering in.

“Hey.”

Sam looked up, an unreadable expression on. “Hey. Morning.”

Looking like he wanted to say something, Dean suddenly became interested in the toes of his boots.

A smile crept onto Sam’s lips. “You know this place is made of metal, tile and stone, right?”  
Dean looked up, puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Sound carries,” Sam said, his tone loaded.

A scoff layered on top of a laugh escaped Dean. He nodded, smiling running the tip of his tongue across a canine tooth. “Yeah, I, uh...” Dean cleared his throat.

“Dean, I’m only going to say this once, ‘cause I shouldn’t have to say it at all: you deserve to have this. You’re my brother and nothing you do can ever change that.”

Dean was staring at Sam wide-eyed. As if a switch flipped, his shoulders straightened up from being hunched in, the nervous warble was gone from his voice and the crushing sadness he’d been carrying through the months since losing Castiel didn’t have the sway over him it used to. “Want some coffee?”

“Sure. Thanks.” Sam watched, smirking, as his brother stepped out, tracking down Cas in the galley. If there was only ever one place on Earth where these two didn’t have to walk on eggshells – where they could just be – Sam was determined that it would be here.

❖


End file.
